University pals’ idea became a $780 billion internet sensation
These days, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who is not on Facebook, with one in three people in the world signed up to the social networking giant.
Billions of us log on for an average of 38 minutes every day to connect with friends, post daily updates, read the news, shop, promote a business and, occasionally, look up old flames.
The world’s largest online social networking site has 2.45 billion users worldwide and a net worth exceeding $780 billion. Yet, like most good origin stories, Facebook boasts pretty humble beginnings.
Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, came up with the initial idea for the site in his Harvard University dorm room on February 3, 2004, when he was just 19.
The concept for the original version, “Facemash”, was fairly underwhelming. It let undergraduates judge their fellow students by comparing photos of their faces and deciding who was the more attractive.
The prototype nearly had Zuckerberg expelled but it did form the basis for what would become Facebook. The tech whizz was inspired by the existing “face book” accounts at Harvard that were part of online directories of students and contained very basic information.
Zuckerberg decided to create a single website for the whole university and, on February 4, 2004, launched thefacebook.com exclusively for Harvard students, with help from Eduardo Saverin, Andrew Mccollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.
The site, which contained more detailed personal profiles but no news feeds, photo-sharing or games, grew in popularity and quickly expanded to other American universities.
Zuckerberg moved his company to California and took on more staff as Facebook evolved and spread across the globe.
Zuckerberg’s ownership was famously contested by his fellow Harvard students, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who sued him for allegedly stealing their idea of a social network platform called “Harvard Connection”. The twins won a $65 million settlement.
In 2006, anyone in the world aged over 13 could set up a Facebook page. In 2007, the News Feed feature was introduced to update users on their friends’ latest activity. Two years later, the company launched a smartphone app.
The ability to share posts and photos and to send private messages attracted more subscribers and in 2008, the site reached one million users. In the same year, Zuckerberg became a billionaire at 23. Four years later, Facebook became the
first social media platform to reach one billion users.
Last year, Zuckerberg was the seventh richest person in the world with an estimated personal fortune of $54bn.
However, Facebook has lost an estimated 17 million users since 2017 amid privacy concerns.in a huge data breach, political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained personal information from millions of accounts.
Facebook was fined $5bn and £500,000 by US and UK watchdogs respectively for privacy violations.
The issue of trust and transparency may have damaged the brand but, in a time when online socialising is more crucial than ever, Facebook’s worldwide popularity still seems guaranteed.